Ecuador doesn't spring to mind as a tourist destination, but it is becoming popular, particularly with backpackers. It's considerably safer than neighbouring Peru and Colombia and it offers incredible value and variety. It has jungle, mountains, volcanoes, beautiful colonial towns and Pacific beaches.
Our eldest daughter lost her heart to Ecuador and now lives there. We'd admired her photos, heard her stories, but nothing prepared us for the strange marriage between the West and the Third World. Ecuador's economy is in crisis. The sucres devalued by 35 per cent in the 17 days we were there. We ate well, three-course dinners for £2 a head, and stayed in comfort for under £10 a night.
Landing in Quito - at 9,200 ft the capital is known as "the gateway to heaven" - it seemed that the wing's tip kissed the mountains. Lulled by magnificent shopping centres and cyber cafes, the dangerous potholed pavements come as a shock. Children jumped from a tree and became shoeshine boys. Business men wearing suits mingled with the indigenous people in their bright, costumes.
Driving south through lush green mountains reminiscent of Tipperary, the clouds lifted and a snow-capped volcano unveiled itself like a reluctant bride. In Ambato for a flower and fruit festival, we watched as the cathedral square was transformed with intricate fruit and flower decorations.
Ecuadorians take their fun seriously. Each night they erected stages in the streets and bands played while tourists and locals mingled to eat, dance and spray foam and confetti.
The parade of dancing convent girls in exotic floral costumes and floats owed little to Ecuadorian culture. These girls look to the US for their clothes and music.
We spent the last days of the fiesta dodging water bombs in Baos, a beautiful town nestling below mountains whose healing springs make it popular with Ecuadorians. The town is full of backpackers who love the buzz and the superlative climbing.
We explored the mountains on horseback, taking a jeep to a hacienda half way up Tungurahua volcano. The spectacular ride took four hours, including the picnic we ate among a profusion of wild flowers.
We joined a crowd of hearty Canadians on an open-air bus to explore the waterfalls at the edge of the jungle. Less than an hour from the town, the contrast between the mountains and the lush jungle vegetation is astonishing. Baos is full of attractive hotels, salsa bars and cafes. We sampled banana daiquiris and were the sole customers for a local Andean group, playing their haunting music on panpipes, flutes and drums.
Passing through Quito in a dramatic thunderstorm, we explored the Spanish colonial squares and took shelter in the monastery of San Francisco - the oldest church in South America, it was built in 1535. The city is overshadowed by Pichinca, a volcano which is currently on yellow alert.
The people of Otavalo, north of Quito, have been weaving since the middle of the 16th century. The Saturday market is, arguably, the best in South America - we spent a glorious morning haggling over hammocks, woven bags, jerseys, hats and jewellery. Later we drove to Cotachi and picked up more spectacular leather bargains.
The people of the Sierra look old before their time. We saw women with babies strapped to their backs, washing clothes in a stream, weaving wool in a field, and leading cows, or laden donkeys. They sell everywhere. The aroma of food, cooked on giant woks, wafts through the streets.
Children with beseeching brown eyes approach you in bars thrusting roses and sweets into your hands. Biscuits are sold on buses. Crowds of vendors throng past sleeping policemen in towns, selling bananas and sugar cane or, on the coast, coconut milk, bottled water and fresh fish.
It took two days to reach the coast. We had crossed the Equator in an area of volcanic rock, driven over cloud forest on "Ecuador's most dangerous road"; a foggy mountain pass where unlit buses career past on blind corners. As the mountains gave way to tropical flatlands, the roads became potholed, muddy tracks. We saw few cars - the population travels by pickup truck, by bus or hanging precariously from the roof of brightly-painted lorries and vans. In towns large tricycles become taxis and animal carriers.
The heat slows the pace. In the villages, horses with Spanish saddles dozed under trees while their owners lounged in hammocks. We found flooded fields, the water isolating houses on stilts. The town of Chone was submerged.
In sleepy towns sensuous women in 1950s dresses tottered on high heels. In front of windowless, tin-roofed shacks, families laughed together. Multiracial children played in the mud. Men hung around on street corners. Pigs and donkeys wandered freely.
On the coast, roads which had been rebuilt since the El Nino floods of 1997 were already disintegrating. In places two thirds of the road had tipped over the cliff. Bridges had collapsed, some replaced by temporary steel girders. We reached our bamboo hotel with relief, and promptly got stuck in mud.
Restored by seafood and passion fruit Jugos, our journey paled into insignificance beside that of a German backpacker - he had spent eight hours covering just 35 miles; his bus diverted to a beach before admitting defeat when it nose dived through a bridge; he had continued his journey by pickup truck, boat, horse and on foot.
For two days we lazed in hammocks, reading above the beach, watching pelicans dance with the waves in perfect formation as the sky turned through red and gold in a seemingly everlasting sunset. Back in the Sierra for our final days, we explored lakes, mountains and more towns. We left with immense sadness, wishing we could stay longer. We had barely begun to discover Ecuador's secrets.